Creating XP Disk Images w/ Company Applications?

-ryan asks: "After a decade as a software engineer, I decided to try my hand at being a System Administrator, to help a friends business. Unfortunately every single computer in this office is on different hardware (all custom built), all running different versions of Windows, and new employees come and go regularly. I'd like to create a single disk image with all of the company software pre-installed and configured to save time setting up new boxes and rebuilding old ones. Problem is, you can't just ghost Windows XP onto different hardware (I remember this working years back). Is there some way that I can (without purchasing hugely expensive 'client-management solutions) slipstream a bunch of company software into a Windows XP install disk?" "I remember trying to set up a system image for XP a while ago, and some machines will boot the ghosted system image with errors about missing drivers (which is easy to fix) but some won't even boot without a BSOD.

If I can pull off a slipstream of my own custom XP install (with applications), I wouldn't mind having to install system specific drivers. The company leadership is very pro Linux and wants to move all of the desktops over, but this year it's not feasible to do such a migration. So until then.... any ideas?"

Comments

Re:Universal Imaging Utility

[Anonymous Coward]

I work in IT at a University with several thousand staff and faculty machines to support. We have been using the UIU for about a year now, and the time it has saved us literally makes some of us worry about keeping our jobs. On top of that, it has let us order all new PCs with XP home, since we have sold our souls to the devil and gotten a campus-wide deal from microsoft for upgrade licenses for windows. So, incoming machines are imaged to XP Pro, we save about $50 per PC, which more than covers the cost of a UIU seat and a Ghost seat.